


Let Me Knit You A Sweater

by calrissian18



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Jealous Derek, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1410040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles never does get warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Knit You A Sweater

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno. *shrugs* Stop looking at me, 'cause I _don't know_. This is some rando thing I thought of this morning and then wrote on my lunch break. I really dunno. Stiles should fucking _knit_ though.

Stiles never does get warm.

Deaton says it’s a side effect of the nogitsune’s possession, that there are still ways that Stiles can lead a normal life.  Stiles blinks, opens his mouth, glances back at Scott and closes it again.  He’d wanted to die towards the end, Derek knows that.

The problem is, Stiles still kind of looks like he’d welcome it.

* * *

They get used to seeing Stiles in winter coats.  To watching him fist either side of his jacket and wrap it as tightly around his thin frame as he can when it’s a warm day and he thinks he can get away with the single layer.

Scott calmly pops open the trunk of Stiles’ Jeep and wraps him in a fuzzy blanket and doesn’t tell him he’s an idiot for trying to get away with less.

He wears gloves and scarves and beanies and, as the weight of the clothes pile up, the heavier his frown gets.

* * *

The Deputy, the one with the wide eyes and youthful face, knits Stiles a pair of mittens.  Stiles switches them out for his gloves immediately, turning them over so he can stare at them from every angle.  They’re pink and hideous and Stiles looks delighted with them.

Derek clenches his jaw, feeling his eyes burn blue when the Deputy touches Stiles’ knee, taking in his fascination, and says, “I could teach you, if you wanted.”

Stiles’ answering smile is small and soft.

Derek growls loudly enough that they look over at him.

* * *

They don’t see Stiles without knitting needles after that.  He’s terrible and he tangles the yarn and gets the needles tied to his fingers like narrow splints and Scott snorts, almost like it’s against his will, and Lydia laughs and Isaac teases and it’s the happiest Derek’s heard them in months.

* * *

He gets better.  Because he’s Stiles, of course he gets better and soon he’s knitting full sweaters that he piles atop himself, one over the other.

It doesn’t take all that long before he’s basically knitted himself a whole wardrobe.

Derek worries he doesn’t sleep.  He looks over at Scott and thinks he’s not the only one that shares that fear.  He overhears Stiles telling Scott that working with his hands like that, it’s the only time he’s not thinking about what he’s done with them.

* * *

Stiles knits Lydia a shirt with a cowl neck made of complementary colors and she kisses Stiles on the cheek and wears it three days in a row.

* * *

He knits Isaac a scarf that says, ‘Only douchebags wear scarves.’  Isaac wears it anyway.

* * *

He knits Scott a pair of gloves that say ALPHA WOLF across the knuckles with a picture of a wolf howling on the last pinky finger.  They’re fingerless too, for when he grows claws.  It takes a lot of cajoling to get Scott to take them  _off_ again and Stiles eventually has to hide them until Scott promises to wear them only in moderation.

Derek still sees him with them on when he takes Kira to the movies, awkwardly reaching into his back pocket for his wallet with stubby fingers.

Derek keeps driving to Stiles’.  He finds the Sheriff asleep on the couch under what is clearly a Stiles-made blanket and takes the stairs two at a time.

Stiles is wide awake and knitting something long and thin.  He looks up when Derek walks in.  His expression is mostly blank but there’s something in his eyes that Derek can’t quite make out.  “You like it?” he asks.  “I just reinforced the end.”

“What is it?”

One side of Stiles’ mouth quirks up while his hands work at the needles.  He’s still now, moves slowly like there’s a constant ache beneath the surface, no more frenetic energy and built up bursts of motion.  The only time Derek sees those flashes of jittery Stiles are when he’s knitting.  He holds it up, says proudly, “It’s a katana cosy.  The end’s got leather on the inside so it won’t poke through.”

Derek sits down in Stiles’ desk chair, watches him work.  “Kira’ll love it.”

Stiles beams at him.  It makes Derek's insides do a strange flop-thing.

* * *

Kira does love it.  It looks ridiculous.  Stiles had gone out of his way to make it look ridiculous, sewing in huge flowers in the pattern, but Kira still adores it.  Stiles even made it so it would fit over the regular sheath too so she can still use it while carrying it at her side.

Which she does.  Derek has to admit, it leads to their opponents underestimating her more than once.

* * *

Stiles makes Parrish a pair of mittens too, only his have guns and a police badge and handcuffs all over them.  Parrish claps him on the shoulder and squeezes.

Derek knows because he can smell it on him.  He walks up behind Stiles in the loft, smoothes a hand over the collar of his coat and rubs from his neck down to the end of his shoulder.  He hates how hard it is to touch him now, how many layers are between them, but he still manages to graze bare skin.

It’s pretty impossible to do that nonchalantly too; Derek tries anyway.  He can tell from Scott’s snigger and Stiles’ flushed cheeks that he probably hasn’t accomplished it.

* * *

Stiles shows up at his door at two in the morning and he’s holding up a maroon sweater that looks strangely familiar somehow.  He shuffles his feet, tugs down the scarf around his mouth.  “I actually started yours first,” he says and Derek’s stomach swoops because his voice is rich and warm and he sounds like  _Stiles_.  “Only, it took forever to find the right color and—”

“That’s my dad’s,” Derek finally realizes.

Stiles looks almost giddy and he bounces.  “Yeah, yes.  It is.  I saw them once, at the station.  I think they were reporting a stolen bike or something” —Cora’s— “and I remembered your dad was wearing this sweater and I knew I could figure out how to make it if I got the image clear enough so I asked my dad and he helped me pick out the color and insisted I  _was_ remembering it right and I thought—I thought: I could make that.”

Derek blinks at him.

Stiles takes a step back, looking uneasy.  “Oh God, this was really presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?  I completely overstepped and I—”

“No, fuck no.  Stiles, this is—this is—” And Derek kisses him.  Because that’s what it is.  It’s something so kind and meaningful that it assuages Derek’s every fear about getting close to someone—about getting close to Stiles.  It’s a balm, a fix, an invitation to  _feel_  something.

Except Stiles doesn’t kiss back.

Derek reluctantly steps away, drops his hands from where they were squeaking against the back of Stiles’ coat.  “I’m sorry, I—”

Stiles shakes his head frantically, says, “You just took me by surprise.”  He still looks a little dazed.  “But it was a really, really  _good_  surprise,” he adds with a quirk of his lips.

Derek smiles hesitantly back at him.

Stiles clears his throat, stares down at Derek’s shoes, shrugs and says, “You’re the only thing that makes me feel warm anymore.”

They get the kiss right this time.   _Really_  right.

**Author's Note:**

> Back to our regularly scheduled writing. Also, [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/) \- you know you wanna.


End file.
